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MIT Living Wage Calculator

livingwage.mit.edu

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Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#131

Post by matthewkayin »

losvedir wrote: post #77
jrajav wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is more like “optimal wage to live alone in my own apartment with a car.” Which of course, people would like to have but certainly isn’t required to be comfortable. This is a debatable goalpost. It seems more reasonable to me to assume that meeting basic shelter needs includes having a private room to oneself. The only reason to argue otherwise is to try to drive down the wage further, and is that at all neces…

Having a private room is not the same as living alone (having a private apartment/house). I think it's reasonable for young people to have flatmates and share an apartment, for example.

If a person is working 40 hours a week to contribute to society, then they should be able to afford housing from that society. If a person on minimum wage needs to have a roommate to get by, then that means that their 40 hours a week is not enough to afford their own shelter. Without that roommate, the person goes without a home despite having done their time for society. This is not reasonable.

If it is reasonable for a young person to have flatmates, then that should be because they are a student or an artist and are working only part-time while devoting the rest of their time to their studies or their art.

But a person working full-time? Who may be a single mother or father with a child to support? They should be able to afford a place to live, without roommates.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#132

Post by Aurornis »

reactordev wrote: post #12

Housing data is flawed. Even if you’re single, no kids, you’re limited to what is available and 1 bedrooms in my state can’t be had for less than $1500/mo anywhere in the state. Yet this says housing costs annually would be $12000. How? I think the data this is based off of is super stale.

> Yet this says housing costs annually would be $12000. How?

Having roommates is extremely common.

There are also a lot of room-for-rent situations that don’t show up on the websites listing apartments. If you’re tapped into local networks of younger people there’s always someone with a room for rent or a group of friends looking for someone to take over a room in a house they’re renting together. Not helpful for someone in their 50s moving to a new city, but for young people living on a budget this is just how it works and has for a long time.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#133

Post by kccqzy »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #109
kccqzy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately in all these calculators there has to be a threshold that determines whether something is needed for “living” or not. And that varies highly by the individual. The calculator suggests $5,021 for food, but for me I’d only shop at high-end grocery like Whole Foods and buy organics whenever possible. That’s clearly not enough. On the other hand it suggests $1,792 for internet and mobile which is about double…

I think “I should be able to fully express my food brand preferences” is not a reasonable standard of livable.

Food choices are highly personal. It’s probably the single most variable expense item here. Who are you to decide for someone else whether their food is reasonable enough or not. And furthermore, in general Americans are among the least picky about their foods; now ask a Frenchman or a Chinese about their food culture.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#134

Post by cozzyd »

The cost of childcare seems way underestimated, at least for young children.

It shows $13,641 for my metro (Chicago), but day care costs are easily twice that. Obviously once kids are school-age this is much lower (if going to public school), so maybe that's how you get at this figure.

On the other hand the transportation costs are way overestimated for non-car families (we spend less than $2k/year on local transit for 2 adults and 1 child, obviously this doesn't include airfare for vacations or whatnot). Maybe these are both an artifact of too broad a catchment area (childcare is probably cheaper in the 'burbs, but so likely are average transportation costs).

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#135

Post by worik »

changoplatanero wrote: post #47
burkaman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single nation on Earth has mandatory paid vacation, except for the United States and three tiny islands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b... . Edit: And looking into it a little, I'm pretty sure two of those islands actually do have mandatory paid leave after a minimum period of employment.

I don't get what the big deal is about mandatory paid vacation. My view is that your total compensation will be set based on the market value of your labor. Some portion of that compensation is given to you in the form of ordinary wages and some portion in the form of paid vacations. If the government mandated paid vacations would it increase many people's total compensation?

> total compensation will be set based on the market value of your labor.

No, you do not want that.

The market value of most people's labour is very close to zero.

Left to the market most of the population would live just below starvation, a very small group of owners would live very well, and a small group of artisans would do OK supporting the tiny group.

That is where many countries are heading

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#137

Post by reactordev »

Aurornis wrote: post #132
reactordev wrote: post #12

Housing data is flawed. Even if you’re single, no kids, you’re limited to what is available and 1 bedrooms in my state can’t be had for less than $1500/mo anywhere in the state. Yet this says housing costs annually would be $12000. How? I think the data this is based off of is super stale.

> Yet this says housing costs annually would be $12000. How? Having roommates is extremely common. There are also a lot of room-for-rent situations that don’t show up on the websites listing apartments. If you’re tapped into local networks of younger people there’s always someone with a room for rent or a group of friends looking for someone to take over a room in a house they’re renting together. Not helpful for som…

Roommate listings are for $1000/mo. I still think it’s grossly under what a typical person would need.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#138

Post by SideQuark »

monsieurbanana wrote: post #107
losvedir wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a private room is not the same as living alone (having a private apartment/house). I think it's reasonable for young people to have flatmates and share an apartment, for example.

Any adult with a full-time job should be able to afford a studio or small apartment. Probably making concessions on the location depending on where they want to live. It's not a matter of being young or not

In the US, this is trivial to do. Theres plenty of states where unskilled entry lever wages easily allows this life, for most of the locations, with the exception of extremely high cost city centers.

Pick IL for example. Min wage $15, so $30k a year income fulltime. Most every adult that’s worked even a little should be able to earn decently more than min, which is for completely unskilled, new workers. Median il wage is 66k.

Even at $30k, the rough 30% rule on housing is $750/mo. At 66k it’s over $1500/mo.

Dig through smaller cities, and you’ll find apartments to rent in either end of this range. This works in any state.

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#139

Post by byronic »

gs17 wrote: post #73
prepend wrote: post #10

I don’t think this is very accurate. In my county the “living wage” is $26.50 for a single adult with no children. Many young people I know live on much less than this. This is more like “optimal wage to live alone in my own apartment with a car.” Which of course, people would like to have but certainly isn’t required to be comfortable. For example, transportation costs are $9000/year and housing is $20000/year. Thes…

> For example, transportation costs are $9000/year and housing is $20000/year. These are both way more than is necessary. Even on the smaller things. "Internet & Mobile" for where I am jumped out to me. Based on the difference between 1 adult and 2 adults, it's $582 per person-year for mobile (which I guess isn't far off if you get a good new phone every 2 years, it's reasonable enough) and with that subtracted, inte…

This depends a lot on where you live. In our area, the minimum internet-only offering from Spectrum is $125 (approximately) after taxes/fees, and the only "competitor" is AT&T, which is more expensive for (at least in our area) worse / flakier service.

I was surprised (at least for Birmingham/AL/Jefferson County) how accurately it pegged _most_ of the costs -- childcare here is closer to $12k/annum/child so that one was the only one I pegged as 'off' - they show 2 children as $16k and that's a ~$8k underestimate

Re: MIT Living Wage Calculator

#140

Post by bradlys »

Jtsummers wrote: post #118
bradlys wrote: post #98

I'm going to base it off of the peninsula (San Mateo County) in the Bay Area for a single person. https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06081 By my estimations, it's not a great calculator. $2.5k/month for all housing costs. I'm not saying it's not possible to find a studio + utilities but that's not a fun place to live. No AC, no insulation, built for a different climate which was 70 years ago, laundromat or (hopefull…

> This calculator does not include retirement savings, emergency saving, etc. It just assumes you'll comfortably live paycheck to paycheck until you die and never save a dime. In our country, you will not be getting $60k/yr post tax from social security. So, this is a stupid calculator unless you plan to never retire or never experience job loss (max payout is $450/week for unemployment in CA), etc. It doesn't includ…

Right, and I think we shouldn't even be talking about a fake ass "living" wage when it's so disconnected from what you actually need to reliably "live" in these environments. I don't know who comes up with these terms but it's terrible. It may as well be called, "absolute minimum amount of money to get by without anything ever bad happening or planning for the future at all" wage.
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